Rx7-AIII

I am looking to buy a set of white gauge faces. Which do you recommend for quality and ease of fitting. Where is the best place to get them from
Thanks

RedR1

iTrader: (5)

I forgot the website, but i have the NR Auto white face gauges, with the autometer dual gaugepod on the A-pillar with Autometer phantom gauges and carbon fiber dash. The set-up looks very nice and clean. when i locate the website, i'll post it here.

Rx7 TwinTurbo

http://www.blackcatcustom.com/store.htm

http://www.nrauto.com/


Mine are from BCC.The NR ones don't fit that well on the tach I think (not sure). I got the Black Cat ones because they let me pick everything from the color to the font.

Rx7-AIII

Thanks for the help. Do the blackcat ones come with something to help callibrate the needles on refitting. I was leaning towards the NR kit as they seem to provide a more complete kit.

Fd3BOOST

iTrader: (7)

There is no such thing as a kit for these. All you need is the faces. The tool they send with it sucks and you won't end up using it anyway. Get the ones that you like to look at.I did the NR faces about a year ago. They illuminate a sort of yellowish color and the Light dffusion is not perfect either. But I still have them in so they can't be all that bad huh?

Fd3BOOST

iTrader: (7)

Sorry about the fuzzy pic. I'm not much of a photographer.

Pumped

man all I have to say is this, Have fun calibrating your gauges dude!, I had to take apart my tach, not to replace the faces for some show, but to resolder cracked joints, and it is a bitch to recalibrate, and this is just one meter, your gonna have to do all five, I never want to do this again, even if someone paid me...

just my 2 cents

gl&hf

Dr. Strange

Recalibrating after removing the needles is simple. I don't know why you had a problem. Just Take note of all needles at idle.Make sure you have a full tank of gas. Then take rpm readings..ie 3000rpm in 5th gear is 80mph. Then when you take the old needle off go and plug the unassembled white assembly back into the car .Start it .Let it idle then gentlly push the needles back on the posts. Just nudge them on, you can push them all the way on later. Make suer you test drive it to check your speedo/tach cordination. Then just unplug it and go reassemble. on a side note. The NR tach guage face has to be glued in the middle otherwise it moves forward and rubs against the bottom ofthe needle. I used regular CA instant glue.
It took me all of 30 min to calibrate mine. Where did you have a problem at Pumped?

SilverR1

Another way to calibrate them: take note were the gauges will sit once you turn the power off. Once the new faces are on, do not put the needles on yet. Power the gauges and allow the gauges to reset. Now turn off the power and place the needles where they originally sat unpowered the first time. Aparently, when removing the needles most people will wiggle them and move the gauge needles. This will make them indicate off.

Hope this helps.

user 84205

FEED, RE-AMEMIYA, MAZDASPEED, I believe all three of those you can just install the gauges back into the dash..

So colors to choose from black, white, blue, and red...

Happy hunting...

Rx7 TwinTurbo

When you caliberate do what Dr.Strange said. Take note of them when at idle and then just do the rest. The NR "KIT" is bull, no help at all. If you want looks and customization go with BCC, if you want NR, get NR.

RedR1

iTrader: (5)

Does anyone have any pix of the BlackCat gauges? I have the NR auto, and they work great (although my speedo lags by like 30 mph, gotta redo it again soon). Everyone says the Black Cats are better, i just wanted to see first hand if pix were avail.

Rx7 TwinTurbo

The one pic in the car is from Manatecu's car and the other one from Black Cat themselfes. I'll post mine when my car's ready from the shop.

SilverR1

For a few different angles of my interior and gauges got to my website below.

Rx7 TwinTurbo

Damn pics wont load but they're both on this forum so do a search on them.

Pumped

my problem is this at idle, I should be at 800~1k rpm, if I set it at that, my 3k @ 5th gear shows 75mph

if I set it @ 3k on 5th gear to be 80 mph, it will show that my idle is 300 rpm, which is clearly wrong, b/c I can slowly release the clutch and the needle will drop to 0 and I still won't stall indicating its really idleing at around 1k

so basically either i'm 5 mph short or ~400~500 rpm over

yeah its not much but its bugging me!

also the tach needle doesn't flow as smoothly as the ones I left untouched. the tach needle just flops around, while the others flow with a consistant cotrolled pace

Fd3BOOST

iTrader: (7)

Are you sure the tack needle isn't rubbing against the guage face . The face on mine popped out and screwed up the movement. I had to glue the face down in the center to remedy this.
Also are ytou sure you let the car get up to operating temps before putting the needle s back on. I say try it again my way (i'm Dr. Strange @work) and yoiu should be able to get it right on the money.

dclin

iTrader: (4)

Yes, the problem is that the stock tach face is dished, whereas the NR face is flat. The dish allows more clearance for the needle - and without depressing the center of the NR face, the needle base will drag.

I used a servo screw from RC car spare parts and screwed the face down just below the center of the face and clearing the needle. I also backed the faces with red acetate (clear plastic) to change the illumination to red. Very sexy. Kinda like when I drap red cloth over the table lamp when...er, never mind. I'll take pics later.

Pumped: Sounds like your tach needle is way off, like 180 degrees. The needle might be in the right place, but the spindle is completely spun around and 'out of its operating range'. I think its trying to return to the correct range, but cannot. Try some wholesale changes in either direction, say 30 degrees at a time. Also, don't lift the needle off - push it in either direction with the needle in place.

The first time I put my tach needle on, the spindle had spun and it was completely off, and sorta flopped around like you described.

Worse case scenario, you can send it to me to calibrate. The Power FC has readouts of speed and RPMs, and it took me only a few minutes to calibrate. My cluster is still sitting loose as that SOMEONE still has not sent me my 95 dash yet! (J/K, G. )

Rx7-AIII

Does anyone have the Black cat faces? I have whait Greddy gauges and so am looking for matching green illumination. How is the fit and is the tach face dished or flat?
Thanks

dclin

iTrader: (4)

I spoke to BCC's owner way back when I was looking to have auto faces done (have since swapped the auto for a manual, so no longer an issue), and I'm under the impression it's flat. No big deal, just glue or screw the face down at the center.

I saw a white guage face kit that actually gets around this problem by covering only the depressed part of the tach( was it attached in this post or another??). Pretty slick, but it leaves the band of stock black face (the outer edge with the numerals) showing - and therefore the illumination has to remain orange.

Daniel

Rx7-AIII

I have seen them too, didn't like the look of them.
Any Japanese suppliers?

dclin

iTrader: (4)

Here you can see the self tapping servo screw just below the center of the tach:



Keeps the gauge face from rubbing the base of the needle.

Fd3BOOST

iTrader: (7)

It's always something you know. Never do the parts just fit . Are your guages NR ? They look like they are but how come they illuminate close to stock colors. Are these new? Mine are a amber / yellow color when lit. Yours look much better IMO.

dclin

iTrader: (4)

Yeah, they are NRs. They actually are a very 'red' red, hehe - they just don't photograph well. Yours are probably darker in real life too.

I used a combination of red acetate (thin clear plastic available at an art store) placed behind the gauges before installing and red light bulbs I got from the local rice shop. The red acetate even covers the mileage readout, so that is illuminated red too.

Unfortunetly, red is probably the only alternative color for the NR gauges as that not sure how yellow/amber ( the original built in color) would work with other different color acetate backings.

I guess green illumination should be possible: yellow + blue acetate = green? Honestly don't know how that will come out though. Will probably have get green light bulbs (if available) to darken it up a bit and fill in the color.

That might be close to the Greddy green illumination, Rx7-AIII. Might want to give that a shot.

dclin

iTrader: (4)

Rx7-AIII: Hmmm, sitting here pondering the green illumination thing - if you stick with NR gauge faces and want green back lighting, you might want to experiment with blue, green, or (better yet) super white bulbs (which is a little closer to blue, but not quite).

The thing is, is that the needle illumination gets its lighting from the same bulb as the gauge numerals, so blue or green bulb + red needle might look funky.

A super white bulb will not throw the needle color off I think, and you can use that in combination with extra layers of blue or green acetate to darken up the numerals and acheive the 'green' you want.

Or, now that I think about it, just get BlackCatCustom gauges in green....

Daniel